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Basically, I realized that not only was I wasting my time covering a bunch of themes coded with their own features, those features could be compiled into a "framework". Now I know a few other designers have released a framework, but XenForo makes it so simple that I have to create one of my own as well.

My framework will not be as feature-rich (or packed) as some of the others. I find that some people have a whole list of features that most people will never even touch. So I am keeping it simple, although not too simple

Here is the planned feature list. Please note that I do not guarantee that any one of these is for sure going to be implemented, but most of them will and this is at least what I'm planning. Based on feedback and if people are even going to use it, the more features I will then implement. Naturally

Features

Global Border Radius: With the change of one or two values you will be able to change the border radius value over the entire design

Social Media Icons (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus will for sure, let me know if you have any requests)

Logo as text if you prefer (I find that requiring people to open Photoshop is not fair, even if the design of the logo will be altered at least you won't need to create your own if you do not have one yet)

Fixed User Bar (At the top, there is a "user bar". What I mean by fixed is that there will be an option to have it fixated to your browser window. So your alerts, inbox, account, and of course the search bar is right there no matter how far along in a thread you might be)

We *might* package the AD Styler in this so you can have your visitors change the style themselves

I can guarantee multiple styles. They will most likely have to be purchased separately, but I want to do a dark theme, a colorful theme, and perhaps something heavily textured and grungy. The idea behind this UI is to change a few values and few backgrounds and you can drastically change the way the theme looks.

Sidebar position (right/left)

Sidebar collapse (If I can get it to work, I want the sidebar to slide to the left if its on the left and to the right if its on the right rather than just collapse into oblivion)

Forum Category tabs (tabs at the top of the forum home that label all the categories): Perhaps this will offer a neater alternative and a unique perspective on forum-ing.

Support for XenPortal (this is the only plugin Audentio Design supports officially, any other third party plugin modifications will need to be requested specifically on a per-person basis.

MOBILE SUPPORT (maybe, we will see what XenForo are working on right now)

Well-known member

Basically, I realized that not only was I wasting my time covering a bunch of themes coded with their own features, those features could be compiled into a "framework". Now I know a few other designers have released a framework, but XenForo makes it so simple that I have to create one of my own as well.

My framework will not be as bloated as some of the others. I find that some people have a whole list of features that most people will never even touch. So I am keeping it simple, although not too simple

Here is the planned feature list. Please note that I do not guarantee that any one of these is for sure going to be implemented, but most of them will and this is at least what I'm planning. Based on feedback and if people are even going to use it, the more features I will then implement. Naturally

Features

Global Border Radius: With the change of one or two values you will be able to change the border radius value over the entire design

Social Media Icons (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus will for sure, let me know if you have any requests)

Logo as text if you prefer (I find that requiring people to open Photoshop is not fair, even if the design of the logo will be altered at least you won't need to create your own if you do not have one yet)

Fixed User Bar (At the top, there is a "user bar". What I mean by fixed is that there will be an option to have it fixated to your browser window. So your alerts, inbox, account, and of course the search bar is right there no matter how far along in a thread you might be)

We *might* package the AD Styler in this so you can have your visitors change the style themselves

I can guarantee multiple styles. They will most likely have to be purchased separately, but I want to do a dark theme, a colorful theme, and perhaps something heavily textured and grungy. The idea behind this UI is to change a few values and few backgrounds and you can drastically change the way the theme looks.

Sidebar position (right/left)

Sidebar collapse (If I can get it to work, I want the sidebar to slide to the left if its on the left and to the right if its on the right rather than just collapse into oblivion)

Forum Category tabs (tabs at the top of the forum home that label all the categories): Perhaps this will offer a neater alternative and a unique perspective on forum-ing.

Support for XenPortal (this is the only plugin Audentio Design supports officially, any other third party plugin modifications will need to be requested specifically on a per-person basis.

MOBILE SUPPORT (maybe, we will see what XenForo are working on right now)

I personally don't think john's or Forsaken's framework are bloated, the way I see it you can not have enough features/options extended to the style properties specifically to the navbar area as this may be the most difficult area to design for. I personally do it without a framework but for users who want to fully customise key areas the abundance of options to the navbar is never enough. That was an example of where feature rich options are beneficial to the end user who wants to extend their custimisation but are unable to do this with the default system.

I personally don't like relying on frameworks for the obvious reasons, you have to wait for the author to update. I like and prefer to have my live forum updated no longer than 5 minutes after the files have been submitted in our customer area.

Forsakens framework is more feature rich and would appeal to people that want to modify all areas of the forum whether it's visual changes to layout toggling which many people have requested.

With regards to keeping things simple, simple is always good but what are plans on your upcoming framework to extend the navbar properties? I can't see this being made too lite or simple with regards to fewer options if your wanting to customise all elements. The navbar is something people want to modify but most can't because they haven't yet got to grips in making those alterations. Any plans for extending the navbar properties?

That said, looking forward in seeing what you develop Mike and what comes of this. In my books frameworks help people understand the system a little better so there can never be enough frameworks providing good high quality documentation is provided with those respected frameworks.

I personally don't think john's or Forsaken's framework are bloated, the way I see it you can not have enough features/options extended to the style properties specifically to the navbar area as this may be the most difficult area to design for. I personally do it without a framework but for users who want to fully customise key areas the abundance of options to the navbar is never enough. That was an example of where feature rich options are beneficial to the end user who wants to extend their custimisation but are unable to do this with the default system.

I personally don't like relying on frameworks for the obvious reasons, you have to wait for the author to update. I like and prefer to have my live forum updated no longer than 5 minutes after the files have been submitted in our customer area.

Forsakens framework is more feature rich and would appeal to people that want to modify all areas of the forum whether it's visual changes to layout toggling which many people have requested.

With regards to keeping things simple, simple is always good but what are plans on your upcoming framework to extend the navbar properties? I can't see this being made too lite or simple with regards to fewer options if your wanting to customise all elements. The navbar is something people want to modify but most can't because they haven't yet got to grips in making those alterations. Any plans for extending the navbar properties?

That said, looking forward in seeing what you develop Mike and what comes of this. In my books frameworks help people understand the system a little better so there can never be enough frameworks providing good high quality documentation is provided with those respected frameworks.

Thanks a lot for your feedback Shelley, I highly value your opinion and appreciate you taking the time. First let me start by saying using the adjective 'bloated' was very very poor word choice as now that I've had some sleep I've reread and it seems to give the impression that I do not have respect for the other frameworks (I have been trying to keep an eye on them, not sure if I'm up to date on each of them) and that couldn't be farther from the truth. What I meant was that I noticed some frameworks add a whole slew of style properties to style all sorts of things that really won't service the average user.

I want to try to use simple properties, integrate them throughout the style properties rather than grouping them at the top. Yes this means that there will be overall less features, but the features will perform more straight forward tasks. As for CSS, I haven't determined what I want to do with that (as I find this to be the key to what I called bloating of the frameworks), but I think it is going to be on a per-style basis.

But you've (indirectly or directly) opened my eyes to the fact that I have never created my own framework and I may very well get caught up in trying to accomplish everything if for no other reason than that XenForo makes it possible and so so easy

As for the navbar, I was planning on having 2 header position options. One that puts the header at the standard position at the top (and thus a horizontal navigation menu), and the other that puts the header on the sidebar. I know others have attempted a global sidebar, and I'm not positive I can pull it off as flawlessly as I want to, but I won't know until I dive in all the way. I also think that I am going to have 1 other option in regards to the navigation: tablink style as a dropdown or standard. If the dropdown style is selected, even the "selected" tab class will have a dropdown rather than making use of the tablinks class. If not, they will display standard (underneath in some shape of form).

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I knew you didn't mean anything by it and it was a case of poor choice of wording which most of us are guilty of.

More importantly. Your framework. Sounds like a winning solution to me and judging by your previous work which I'll say I very much like I expect this to be another high quality framework added to the xenforo style frameworks.

I'm especially looking forward in seeing the navbar area properties as a finished project, from what you've mentioned it looks like it'll be something special. I'll admit when I first started customizing the navbar I was tearing my hair out, Almost gave up on it on several occasions but i persevered with it to the point I've very comfortable doing any design, alterations with it at ease. Point being, the navbar properties and a way for people to understand is important so hopefully you'll pull this one off which I think you won't have trouble doing and I know people will appreciate it all the more. I personally feel any person creating a framework should always have navbar extended properties added and good documentation for users to understand making it easy as possible for them to understand.

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I think it's lovely Mike...really do. The only suggestion I would make is to consider some of the elements that make it look like a MyBB or IPB design. I know there's only so much moving things around and there are indeed some aspects of those other product's designs that are appealing - I only make that suggestion because I'm (personally) adverse to trending away from what makes XF what it is...if that makes any sense. Otherwise, I do think it's beautiful work as is always the case with your designs.

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Could you elaborate on which parts remind you of MyBB or IPB? Normally I try to keep things where they should be (in other words, where the default platform places them), but here my only thought was "To maximize detail, functionality, and space" or something like that.

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The plan is to design something unique for XenPorta and a nice new postbit. After that, if we don't hear anything about the next XenForo release, I will probably get started on an altered version (I have a leather-style with some browns in mind) or two. If we still haven't heard anything, I'll get started coding the basics, but I won't release it until the next major release since we are around the midpoint of when they release new versions.

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Thank you for your support! And I will! I know I kinda dropped the ball on Drift, as I designed it better than I coded it as I was trying to make it work easily as a dark skin and a light skin, and that wasn't as easy as I thought. I'm going to be doing some awesome work with Drift as well, and its still a great theme but I want to perfect that one.

With this one, I'm not worried about what I was with Drift. What you see in the design is pretty much how its going to look pixel for pixel. And again I know the forum nodes are a bit big, those might decrease a bit in size, but the rest will be pretty much as you see it now. That is my personal goal.

Well-known member

Could you elaborate on which parts remind you of MyBB or IPB? Normally I try to keep things where they should be (in other words, where the default platform places them), but here my only thought was "To maximize detail, functionality, and space" or something like that.

I guess I was referring mainly to the stats above the footer and the node list...both of those elements, while appealing, look like IPB to me. Not a big deal mind you, just the impression it left me with.